tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/political-endorsements-23373/articlespolitical endorsements – The Conversation2016-10-26T03:23:33Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/637972016-10-26T03:23:33Z2016-10-26T03:23:33ZWhat's at risk if scientists don't think strategically before talking politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143171/original/image-20161025-4714-137isv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scientists have a lot to contribute – and a lot to lose. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=146113088">Mic image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Earlier this fall, the nonpartisan nonprofit <a href="http://sciencedebate.org/20answers">ScienceDebate.org</a> released Donald Trump’s and Hillary Clinton’s responses to a set of questions about science policy. Shortly after, a group of 375 scientists wrote an <a href="http://responsiblescientists.org/">open letter</a> focused specifically on the United States honoring commitments around climate change. Seventy Nobel laureates then penned a more general Clinton endorsement; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/us/politics/70-nobel-laureates-endorse-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0">President Obama had garnered similar numbers</a> of Nobel winners’ support in the previous election cycles.</p>
<div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props='{"tweetId":"788469224456978432"}'></div>
<p>As someone who both studies science communication and thinks of himself as a part of the scientific community, I applaud scientists’ desire to engage with our broader society. The scientific community has substantial expertise to share and a responsibility to share it. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I worry that doing things like asking candidates to weigh in on scientific questions in the context of a “debate” may have unintended consequences that need to be thought through as a community. </p>
<p>None of the below should be taken as a rebuke. Rather, the point is to honestly consider whether the scientific community is making strategic communication choices when it comes to this election. Poor choices could give the dangerous impression that scientific questions can be debated like policy choices – while also cutting into the public’s overall trust in science. </p>
<h2>What happens when scientists engage politically</h2>
<p>I’m very hesitant to suggest that scientists bite their tongues about things such as the threat of a political candidate who doesn’t believe in climate change. But I also worry that the scientific community’s tendency to respond to many Republicans’ unhelpful views about science policy with continued feigned surprise, and occasional <a href="http://www.salon.com/2016/09/13/trumps-no-einstein-but-his-ignorant-illiterate-answers-to-the-campaign-science-quiz-reflect-a-non-stupid-strategy/">derision</a>, might have negative consequences for the continued strong place of science in society.</p>
<p>As might have been predicted, the ScienceDebate.org efforts, for example, showed that one of the major party candidates has limited interest in reassuring the scientific community that its <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/grading-the-presidential-candidates-on-science/">views are respected</a>. The climate change open letter similarly reiterates that our best scientists know the Republican candidate for president doesn’t care what they think and find it (understandably) disheartening.</p>
<p>It would be one thing if there was an opportunity for a real debate – in the sense of a meaningful exchange of ideas – between the candidates or parties about how to best use scientific evidence or best support science. And it’s not that political leaders don’t need to know about science; it seems clear that our top leaders should know a lot about many things, science included.</p>
<p>But did people really learn anything they didn’t already know about the candidates from recent, prominent science communication efforts? Many partisans used these releases to <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2016/09/14/presidential_candidates_including_clinton_and_trump_answer_science_questions.html">further</a> <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-clinton-science-debate_us_57d71cd0e4b0fbd4b7baff78">deride</a> the <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/09/13/media-call-out-trump-dodging-key-science-questions/213045">Republican presidential nominee</a> about his views on science. </p>
<p>On the flip side, there’s no evidence a meaningful number of people who aren’t already broadly supportive of science pay much attention to open letters or were influenced by them.</p>
<p>If few people learned anything that would increase their support for science, then any benefits of scientists entering into the political debate aren’t obvious. But thinking of risks isn’t hard.</p>
<h2>Scientists currently enjoy good social standing</h2>
<p>At present, the <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2016/nsb20161/#/report/chapter-7/public-attitudes-about-s-t-in-general">scientific community is unique</a> in experiencing both consistent and high levels of public confidence. In 2014, only 8 percent of Americans said they had “hardly any” confidence in the scientific community. “Confidence” in this regard should be understood as a measure of trust.</p>
<iframe id="datawrapper-chart-tAn6N" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/tAn6N/1/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="534"></iframe>
<p>In recent years the public has reported higher levels of “confidence” in the military than scientists, but that’s fluctuated over time. The medical community used to enjoy the highest average level of confidence but has seen declines. Politicians and the media have long elicited less confidence than scientists, and have seen their standing further diminish over the years.</p>
<p>However, looking at the overall standing of the scientific community does hide the reality that conservatives appear to have gone from a group with <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0003122412438225">relatively high to relatively low confidence</a> in what researchers are up to. There are also efforts by <a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenterstore.org/collections/frontpage/products/the-black-book-of-the-american-left-volume-v-culture-wars">some conservatives</a> to make an issue of academics’ political leanings (alongside a warning that scholars need to recognize the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/opinion/academias-rejection-of-diversity.html">dangerous position</a> we’re in as academia becomes more liberal).</p>
<p>Unfortunately the best available, over-time measure of confidence in the scientific community relies on a single survey question that doesn’t clearly differentiate between the idea of trust as perceived warmth versus trust as competence. On this set of metrics, there is some evidence that scientists come off as <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1317505111">competent, but cold</a>. Other studies have also found, however, that most Americans believe scientists have their <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/index.cfm/chapter-7/c7s3.htm#s3">motives in the right place</a>.</p>
<p>So, if we accept that scientists are already held in high regard, do they run the risk of tarnishing their current strong reputation by engaging in electoral politics when there are limited potential benefits? Even well-meaning reports like the one ScienceDebate.org produced could seem to suggest that relying on scientific evidence is up for debate and that scientists are political actors.</p>
<h2>What is the risk of political engagement?</h2>
<p>It seems important to differentiate between various kinds of public engagement. On the one hand, scientists may engage with the public around issues that have policy relevance in nonpartisan contexts. For instance, based on their expertise they might advise communities or policymakers, or talk about their work in public forums. Alternatively, they might get directly involved in the electoral process through endorsements and pushing candidates to take positions.</p>
<p>My particular worry is that by being too vocal about specific issues and candidates at election time, the science community might increase the risk of communicating to conservatives, in particular, that only a small proportion of scientists share conservative views.</p>
<p>In both 2009 and 2014, 64 percent of Americans said they <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/09/majority-of-americans-say-scientists-dont-have-an-ideological-slant/">didn’t think of scientists as politically liberal or conservative</a>. </p>
<p>In reality, the available evidence suggests that most scientists do lean toward the liberal end of the spectrum. In 2009, the Pew Research Center reported that 55 percent of the scientists they surveyed from a prominent scientific society <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2009/07/09/section-4-scientists-politics-and-religion/">identified as Democrats</a> with another 26 percent leaning toward the Democratic Party.</p>
<p>We don’t really know what the effect would be if more people began to see science as something that politicians seek to shape and use selectively. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/poq/nft044">It doesn’t seem like it would help</a>. The limited available evidence, for example, seems to suggest that framing a topic such as nuclear energy as a political issue decreases support for that technology. </p>
<p>More generally, can we really expect conservatives to come back to science by further pointing out, and sometimes belittling, their candidate’s rejection of science? </p>
<p>The risk of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1547">pushing conservatives away</a> seems larger than most potential benefits. There’s a well-known tendency to process information in ways that support one’s existing views, known as motivated reasoning. It seems doubtful there are swing voters or center-leaning conservatives that could be “science shamed” into voting for a political candidate.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143136/original/image-20161025-4721-18mhsi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143136/original/image-20161025-4721-18mhsi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Climate scientist James Hansen speaks out before Congress about the political ramifications of his research.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_Hansen.jpg">NASA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We’ve seen what happened when climate change became politicized; do we want to head down that road with science in its entirety? It’s unlikely to aid science’s cause if there are more issues (like evolution) for which people tend to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2016.1148067">use their political ideology</a>, rather than their overall positive views about science and scientists, to <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/07/01/americans-politics-and-science-issues/">decide their stance</a>. </p>
<p>And how researchers choose to communicate their work and views matters. Colleagues and I recently found in a set of experiments that in nonelection contexts, a scientist who <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2016.1223159">aggressively attacks those with whom he disagrees</a> – for example, on either genetically modified food or nuclear energy – received lower ratings of writing quality and likability. The aggressive tone seemed to violate subjects’ expectations for how a scientist should communicate, contributing to negative perceptions.</p>
<p>On the positive side, in previous surveys that other colleagues and I have done around the issue of genetically modified crops, for example, we’ve found that people can still <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2014.02.006">accept as legitimate</a> science-related outcomes they disagree with if they believe the decision-makers listened to and treated others with respect.</p>
<h2>Considering the goal</h2>
<p>Open letters and requests for science debates are a long way from aggressiveness. But the point is that our communication choices matter. The challenge is figuring out how to communicate strategically on behalf of science.</p>
<p>Being strategic means figuring out what you want to achieve through communication and what, realistically, you can expect to accomplish through the channels and resources available. It means not just saying or doing what feels right in the moment but thinking through, <a href="http://www.thevictorylab.com/">even testing</a>, expected cause and effect.</p>
<p>None of this is to suggest that members of the scientific community shouldn’t speak their conscience or that recent efforts such as those by ScienceDebate.org were ill-considered. The point is only to encourage all of us who may sometimes want to communicate on behalf of science to systematically think through whether what we’re doing might help.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63797/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Besley has received funding to study goal setting in the context of science communication from the National Science Foundation (NSF, Grant AISL 14241214). He also receives funding from the NSF through a contract with SRI International to help write a biennial Science and Engineering Indicators chapter on public opinion about science on behalf of the National Science Board that is cited in the article. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF or the NSB.</span></em></p>The scientific community enjoys one of the highest levels of trust among American institutions. But engaging in the political arena during a contentious election season comes with dangers.John C. Besley, Associate Professor of Advertising and Public Relations, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/664732016-10-17T01:05:46Z2016-10-17T01:05:46ZWhy newspaper endorsements might matter more in this election<p>What do <a href="http://www.chron.com/opinion/recommendations/article/For-Hillary-Clinton-8650345.php">The Houston Chronicle</a>, <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2016/09/07/recommend-hillary-clinton-us-president">The Dallas Morning News</a>, <a href="http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/editorials/2016/09/23/enquirer-endorses-hillary-clinton-donald-trump/90728344/">The Cincinnati Enquirer</a> and <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2016/10/09/1-editorial-for-president-trump-unfit-clinton-is-qualified.html">The Columbus Dispatch</a> have in common? </p>
<p>They’ve all broken from their tradition of endorsing Republican nominees and have endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. </p>
<p>On the same note, The Chicago Tribune, USA Today and The Atlantic have also done something new this cycle: <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-gary-johnson-president-endorsement-edit-1002-20160930-story.html">The Tribune</a> endorsed the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson (the paper usually endorses the Republican nominee, except for Barack Obama in 2008). The latter two usually don’t make endorsements but have written editorials urging voters to either not vote for Republican candidate Donald Trump (<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/09/29/dont-vote-for-donald-trump-editorial-board-editorials-debates/91295020/">USA Today</a>) or vote for Hillary Clinton (<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/11/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-and-against-donald-trump/501161/">The Atlantic</a>). </p>
<p>In fact, <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/tv/donald-trump-makes-history-zero-major-newspaper-endorsements-000943174.html">none of the top 50 newspapers</a> has endorsed Trump so far – <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/clinton-trump-newspaper-endorsements">a stark difference from the 2012 race</a>, when GOP candidate Mitt Romney garnered a number of endorsements. </p>
<p>This avalanche of surprise endorsements has raised an important question: Do newspapers endorsements even matter? And, if so, do some matter more than others? </p>
<h2>Going to the betting markets</h2>
<p>In 2008, we were living in Chicago when The Chicago Tribune decided to endorse, for the first time in its history, a Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama. It was big news. </p>
<p>As economists born outside of the United States, we were curious about this phenomenon. Around the world, newspaper endorsements for political candidates aren’t the norm; they certainly don’t take place in our home countries (Argentina, France and Portugal). So we decided to investigate the impact of newspaper endorsements. </p>
<p>We’re not the first to do so; <a href="http://restud.oxfordjournals.org/content/78/3/795">in an influential paper</a>, economists Chun-Fang Chiang and Brian Knight found that newspapers endorsements are likely to influence readers’ decisions, especially those of more moderate voters. </p>
<p>Building upon this research, we wanted to address a different issue: To what extent can newspaper endorsements influence the daily odds of each candidate winning? </p>
<p>Winning candidates will often receive a good chunk of endorsements. But it’s difficult to tell whether the endorsements helped get him or her the votes, or whether they earned votes simply due to the fact that they were good candidates. It’s the common dilemma of “causation or correlation.”</p>
<p>Therefore, our main challenge was creating a situation in which the quality of the candidate could remain constant, but the vote share could move. </p>
<p>To do this, we used data from online prediction markets – specifically, INTRADE, a now-defunct online platform that included a prediction exchange that would allow people to take positions (called “contracts”) on the probability of practically any event taking place. Contracts might include “England to win the 2010 Soccer World Cup,” “Jennifer Lawrence to win the Oscar for Best Actress” or, in our case, “Obama to win US Presidential Election” in 2008 and 2012. The price of a contract depends on the probability of the event taking place. For example, after England tied with the United States 1-1 in its first World Cup soccer match against South Africa, the corresponding contract for England winning the World Cup saw its price dramatically go down. </p>
<p>As such, the contract price reflects the average probability of a candidate winning the election, as estimated by market participants. For example, say the price of an “Obama winning the election” contract was US$5.25 on a given day. This meant that Obama had a 52.5 percent probability of winning at the time of purchase. If you bought a contract on that day – and if Obama ended up winning – you’d earn $10, for a net gain of $4.75. If he lost, the owner would lose his initial bet. Some researchers prefer these measures to polls because, rather than asking for a voter’s preferences, prediction markets make people “put their money where their mouth is.” </p>
<p>Following this tradition, we collected the data of the 2008 and 2012 elections, and used the price on the Obama contract to show his daily probability of winning. We then looked at how a day with a number of endorsements supporting one or the other candidate influenced this probability (measured at the end of the day). </p>
<p>But not every newspaper endorsement is equal, and it’s important to factor this into the analysis as well. Some have more readers than others. Some tend to support Republican candidates, while others tend to support Democratic candidates.</p>
<p>For this reason, we classified newspapers according to their political leaning along two dimensions already measured in the literature: (1) the media slant (<a href="http://web.stanford.edu/%7Egentzkow/research/biasmeas.pdf">a measure created in the influential work</a> of economists Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro) and (2) their propensity to endorse the Democratic candidate, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/100.00000009">data that come from the work</a> of political scientists Stephen Ansolabehere, Rebecca Lessem and James M. Snyder. </p>
<p>The media slant measure – which examines the ideology of the newspaper and the language used in covering polarizing matters such as abortion, illegal immigrants and stem-cell research – is used to determine whether or not an endorsement is a surprise.</p>
<p>We then estimated the impact of such endorsements on Obama’s probability of winning. </p>
<h2>The results, and what they mean in 2016</h2>
<p>Our first findings built nicely upon previous research. We found, perhaps not surprisingly, that endorsements from high-circulation newspapers have a larger effect on the probability of winning.</p>
<p>More interestingly, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecin.12317/abstract">our results</a> suggested that endorsements that were a surprise (given the editorial board choices in previous elections) – but were still consistent with the traditional style and rhetoric of the newspaper – seemed to matter the most. For instance, The Chicago Tribune’s endorsement for Obama in 2008 seemed to have a significant effect. The paper had never endorsed a Democrat candidate before, but it also maintained its traditional center-right style and tone.</p>
<p>Overall, we found that on days with at least one endorsement, the endorsed candidate experiences higher odds of winning. There’s some evidence that this effect increases the more endorsements a candidate receives on a given day. However, this should be taken with a grain of salt; with each additional endorsement, the marginal effect decreases. </p>
<p>Among the many strange events of this election cycle are the huge share of surprise endorsements. Because one candidate, Donald Trump, has distanced himself from the traditional ideology of his party, he’s also distanced himself from the traditional ideology of some editorial boards. The combination of these two anomalies have brought newspaper endorsements into the spotlight more than ever before. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141861/original/image-20161014-30252-1u0vjrr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141861/original/image-20161014-30252-1u0vjrr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A chart compares newspaper endorsements from 2012 and 2016.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Extrapolating our results to the current election, this means that USA Today’s mandate to not elect Trump could have a significant effect, since it’s one of the top U.S. newspapers in terms of circulation. </p>
<p>And what about Hillary’s endorsements from right-leaning publications that endorsed Romney in 2012, like The Cincinnati Enquirer? Using our data from previous election cycles, if Clinton had a 50 percent chance of winning on the day of the endorsement, it would have likely increased her odds of winning the election by a couple of percentage points.</p>
<p>Putting our economists’ hats on, we know our results should be interpreted with caution, as they speak to short-run effects on the perceived probability of a candidate winning the elections. Those effects may fade as we get closer to election date or as long as other events take place during the campaign. Naturally, new information could emerge about a candidate that influences the final outcome. The most conservative interpretation of our results is that newspaper endorsements can help to create momentum that the receiving candidate can build upon. </p>
<p>In our paper, we explain in detail why the interpretation of our results should be taken as causal, and not casual. (That is, our identification strategy implies that the probability of winning increases due to the endorsements and not other events that may have taken place the same day.)</p>
<p>In sum, do endorsements matter? Definitely. They can help create momentum for the candidate and slightly shift the odds. But will they define the outcome on Election Day? Unlikely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66473/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yarine Fawaz receives funding from ECO2013-46516-C4-1-R (Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologia) and SGR2014-1279 (Generalitat de Catalunya). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Agustin Casas and André Trindade do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>People tend to assume that most papers have an inherent bias, so a group of economists looked at what happens when there's a surprise pick.Agustin Casas, Assistant Professor of Organization and Business Management, CUNEFAndré Trindade, Assistant Professor of Economics, Getulio Vargas Foundation Graduate School of EconomicsYarine Fawaz, Research Fellow, Center for Monetary and Financial StudiesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/517942015-12-08T02:58:38Z2015-12-08T02:58:38ZTrump is running last in one key race<p>Donald Trump holds a commanding lead in Republican presidential polls. The most recent <a href="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2015/images/12/04/cnnorc12042015gopprimarypoll.pdf">CNN</a> poll shows Trump with a 20-point lead over his GOP challengers. </p>
<p>The CNN poll is not an aberration. The <a href="http://www.quinnipiac.edu/images/polling/us/us12022015_U45hkpp.pdf">Quinnipiac</a>, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2015/11/20/fox-news-poll-2016-matchups-syrian-refugees/">Fox News</a> and <a href="http://www.langerresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/1173a22016Election.pdf">Washington Post</a> polls also show Trump with a double-digit lead.</p>
<p>But Trump is in last place when it comes to a crucial measure of presidential viability: endorsements by major officeholders. Thus far, no <a href="http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-endorsement-primary/">incumbent governor or current member of Congress</a> has endorsed the New York billionaire. </p>
<p>To be sure, Trump seems much more interested in poll results than political endorsements. At a recent campaign rally he boasted that he was “<a href="http://www.whdh.com/story/30623400/trump-boasts-about-killing-opponents-in-polls-during-florida-rally">killing everybody</a>” in both national and state polls. </p>
<p>However, a growing body of evidence from recent elections shows that polls are an <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-09-29/flaws-in-polling-data-exposed-as-u-s-campaign-season-heats-up">increasingly unreliable measure</a> of public opinion. Instead, candidate <a href="http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-endorsement-primary/">endorsements</a> offer a more <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/political-newspaper-endorsements-history-and-outcome/?_r=0">accurate forecast</a> of election outcomes, a fact that is bad news for Trump but good news for Hillary Clinton. </p>
<h2>Unreliable polls</h2>
<p>Despite the media’s obsessive coverage of polling data, history shows that polls have a bad track record of predicting election outcomes. For example, the polls predicted that <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/05/elec04.poll.democrats.poll/">Howard Dean</a> would win the Democratic nomination in 2004, <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/103348/giuliani-leads-gop-race-huckabee-others-tie-second.aspx">Rudy Giuliani</a> would win the Republican nomination in 2008 and <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/151355/gingrich-romney-among-gop-voters-nationwide.aspx">Newt Gingrich</a> would win the GOP nomination in 2012. </p>
<p>But the polls were wrong. None of those candidates caught fire with the voters and each dropped out long before the party conventions. </p>
<p>The problem of flawed polling data is only getting worse. Statisticians warn that the rise of cellphones and the sharp decline in participation rates have rendered polls so <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/07/21/the-challenges-of-polling-when-fewer-people-are-available-to-be-polled/">unreliable</a> that the <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-future-of-polling-may-depend-on-donald-trumps-fate/">fate of the polling industry</a> itself is now in doubt.</p>
<h2>The key to the White House</h2>
<p>A more dependable measure of a candidate’s strength is found in endorsements by political officeholders, prominent interest groups and major newspapers. Indeed, endorsements have a surprisingly accurate track record of forecasting presidential elections. </p>
<p>For example, a 2012 study by the <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/2012_newspaper_endorsements.php">American Presidency Project</a> found that Barack Obama was endorsed by more major newspapers than Mitt Romney, an overlooked metric that accurately reflected the election’s ultimate outcome. The accuracy of the 2012 newspaper endorsements was not a fluke. A 2011 study by <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/political-newspaper-endorsements-history-and-outcome/?_r=0">Editor &amp; Publisher magazine</a> found that between 1972 and 2008, the candidate that garnered the most endorsements from large-circulation newspapers won the presidency in seven out of 10 elections.</p>
<p>Political endorsements provide an even more accurate election forecast. For example, a 2008 study by the political scientists <a href="http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-endorsement-primary/">Marty Cohen, David Karol, Hans Noel and John Zaller</a> found that endorsements by state and federal officeholders and key interest groups served as a powerful predictor of which candidates ultimately won their parties’ nominations.</p>
<h2>Clinton monopolizing Democratic endorsements</h2>
<p>The critical importance of political endorsements is not lost on Hillary Clinton. </p>
<p>When it comes to receiving the public support of influential party leaders, no candidate even comes close to her. Clinton has thus far received <a href="http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-endorsement-primary/">192</a> endorsements by governors and members of Congress, while Bernie Sanders has received only two endorsements and Martin O’Malley has just one. </p>
<p>Also noteworthy is the fact that Clinton recently received the endorsements of <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/clinton-nea-teachers-union-endorsement-214402">major labor unions</a>, a key Democratic Party <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/23/us-usa-election-union-idUSKCN0SH24520151023">constituency</a>. </p>
<p>If history is any guide, Clinton may have already effectively won the Democratic nomination by dominating the endorsement race.</p>
<h2>GOP endorsement race still undecided</h2>
<p>In contrast, the hunt for Republican endorsements has barely even begun. The overwhelming majority of GOP <a href="http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-endorsement-primary/">governors, senators and representatives</a> have thus far not endorsed any of the presidential candidates.</p>
<p>But recent trends indicate that Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are beginning to build some endorsement momentum. In November, Cruz won the critical endorsement of <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/steve-king-endorses-ted-cruz-2016-election-215925">Steve King</a>, an arch-conservative congressman with enormous influence among Iowa caucus voters. Since receiving King’s endorsement, Cruz has moved into the top two in the <a href="http://www.monmouth.edu/assets/0/32212254770/32212254991/32212254992/32212254994/32212254995/30064771087/de240398-df23-47b6-8470-91977d38b749.pdf">latest</a> <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/07/politics/donald-trump-ted-cruz-iowa-poll/index.html">Iowa polls</a>. Meanwhile, Rubio has received <a href="http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-endorsement-primary/">18 endorsements since September</a>, more than any other Republican candidate this fall.</p>
<p>And last month the <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/will-the-new-hampshire-union-leaders-endorsement-help-chris-christie/">Union Leader</a>, an influential conservative newspaper in New Hampshire, endorsed Chris Christie. Although the Union Leader has not always correctly predicted the winner of the New Hampshire primary, the candidate receiving the newspaper’s endorsement has usually experienced a <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/will-the-new-hampshire-union-leaders-endorsement-help-chris-christie/">significant boost</a> at the ballot box on primary day.</p>
<h2>Will Republican leaders endorse Trump?</h2>
<p>By mid-December, Trump had received only <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/12/10/us/ap-us-gop-2016-trump.html">one important endorsement</a> - from the New England Police Benevolent Association. </p>
<p>That’s not surprising. After all, Trump has based his campaign on exploiting the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-maintains-lead-in-gop-presidential-race-carson-second/2015/10/20/6e96eaf6-7733-11e5-b9c1-f03c48c96ac2_story.html">intense anti-establishment mood</a> among rank-and-file Republicans by making <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/11/22/donald-trumps-outrageous-claim-that-thousands-of-new-jersey-muslims-celebrated-the-911-attacks/">false</a>, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/donald-trump-doubles-down-on-registering-muslims/416973/">outrageous</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/07/donald-trump-calls-for-banning-muslims-from-entering-u-s/?emc=edit_na_20151207&amp;nlid=69180613&amp;ref=cta&amp;_r=0">bigoted</a> and <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-donald-trump/story?id=34706902">divisive</a> statements that appall the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/us/politics/wary-of-donald-trump-gop-leaders-are-caught-in-a-standoff.html?_r=0">GOP leadership</a>. </p>
<p>He has also made clear his disdain for party leaders. In an <a href="http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2015/11/22/trump-im-leading-because-politicians-are-incompetent/">ABC interview</a> last month Trump declared: “I’m leading because people are sick and tired of stupid and incompetent people leading our nation.”</p>
<p>But to win a presidential election, you need a nationwide organization to mobilize voters. Mitt Romney learned that fact the hard way in 2012. The Obama campaign’s <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/victory_lab/2012/11/obama_s_get_out_the_vote_effort_why_it_s_better_than_romney_s.html">get-out-the-vote</a> efforts <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/02/21/the-obama-campaign-won-gotv-gold-in-the-2012-campaign-games/">far surpassed</a> those of the Romney campaign, an organizational advantage that proved decisive on election day.</p>
<p>That is why endorsements are so important. They demonstrate that a candidate has built the campaign infrastructure necessary to win a national election. </p>
<p>Party leaders are key to the success of such organizational efforts. At some point, therefore, Trump must start wooing Republican governors, senators and representatives. Although an anti-establishment mood grips the GOP, the <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2015/12/04/beating-the-establishment-and-losing-anyway-in-the-2016-race?emailed=1&amp;src=usn_thereport">party’s organizational leadership</a> is critical to get-out-the-vote efforts on election day. </p>
<p>Thus, despite the media’s intense focus on polling data, endorsements remain indispensable to successful presidential campaigns. Trump ignores that fact at his peril.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This article was updated on Dec. 11, 2015 to report Trump’s first major endorsement.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51794/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="double-bordered">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony J Gaughan is a registered independent</span></em></p>Trump is up -- way up -- in the polls, but he's losing the endorsement game.Anthony J. Gaughan, Associate Professor of Law, Drake UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.